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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27738541">Scars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chatspunsaregold52/pseuds/Chatspunsaregold52'>Chatspunsaregold52</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adrien still has trust issues too, Borderline crack, F/M, Marinette is still deeply scarred by what happened in Sandboy, Sock Plagg will probably make an appearance, They're such DORKS!, and I love it, as well as nightmare Adrien, mentions of events in Sandboy, shower ideas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27738541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chatspunsaregold52/pseuds/Chatspunsaregold52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette comes to school the day after the fight with Sandboy and discovers that she's not nearly as over it as she thought she was. And she's not the only one with emotional scars; Adrien finds that he has some residual trust issues as well.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Scars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marinette rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she walked to school. Late-night akumas were always hard on her sleep patterns, no matter how quickly they managed to take care of them. She was so tired, in fact, that she barely noticed Adrien until he was right in front of her.</p><p>"Hey, Marinette", he greeted her. Startled, Marinette cried out and flailed backwards. That voice, saying her name -- quite frankly, it was horrifying. Normally, she would be over the moon at Adrien starting a conversation with her. But, this morning, it was too soon. She could hear the terrible words in her head still: <em>Marineeeeetttteee~ I'm in love with a girl and her name is ChLoE...</em> No, it was definitely too early for this. As she hugged herself in fright, she noticed that Adrien looked a little hurt.</p><p>"Oh, um, s-sorry, Adrien! I didn't mean to freak you at out! Th-that is, I didn't mean to freak out at you! I-I was just a bit startled! Um, good morning?", she stumbled.</p><p>His face cleared. "Oh, I'm sorry, Marinette! I didn't mean to scare you!"</p><p>"It-It's okay, Adrien. Um, I think I should class- I mean get to class! Don't wanna be great- late, I meant late!", she waved as she dashed off. For whatever reason, she just couldn't be around Adrien right now. Perhaps last night had shaken her up more than she thought.</p><p>Sliding into her seat, she greeted Alya, who paused briefly in her narrative to say hi. She had been telling Nino about how her nightmare last night had kept her from being able to get any footage of the attack for the Ladyblog, and anyways it was over fairly quickly. Adrien joined them just as Alya was finishing up, exchanging a fist bump with Nino.</p><p>"Yikes, I'm sorry, babe. My nightmare was no fun either, that's for sure. I was-", Nino started, only to be interrupted by Ms. Bustier starting class. Alya mouthed <em>later </em>at Nino, and he nodded before turning around to face the teacher. </p><p>Marinette usually spent a large portion of her class time staring at Adrien, but she found that every time she even glanced at him, an involuntary shudder coursed through her. Oddly enough, from the small peeks that she could handle taking, he spent most of class with his bag on his lap. His left hand was almost constantly inside his bag, while he took notes with his right. She gave up trying to understand that and focused on class. Or tried to, at least. </p><p>~~~~~</p><p>Unfortunately, the effects from the Sandboy attack persisted even longer than Marinette would have thought. Her reactions got a lot better, to the point where Adrien no longer got that hurt look in his eyes every time she flinched or flailed. However, weeks, even months later, she still couldn't help but see nightmare Adrien's crazed eyes when he spoke to her. It made her wonder how everyone else was dealing with their nightmares. She decided to bring it up with Alya at lunch one day. </p><p>"Do you ever think about the one attack where our nightmares came to life? It still creeps me out sometimes", she said casually. </p><p>"Yeah, sometimes, but not a lot. What was yours, girl?", Alya responded. </p><p>So Marinette told her. "That's why sometimes, when I'm around Adrien, especially when he startles me, I...", she trailed off, embarassed.</p><p>"...you look like he killed your grandma or something. Seriously, Marinette?", Alya asked, clearly amused.</p><p>"Who killed whose grandma?", Adrien asked, setting down his bag and taking the seat next to Marinette. She could only hope he hadn't heard any of what she and Alya had just been talking about. Nino joined their table as well, sitting next to Alya. </p><p>"Ummm, no one, really!", Marinette said, trying to think of a way to explain the topic of their discussion without really revealing what they had been talking about. </p><p>"We were talking about the one akuma attack where all of our nightmares came to life!", Alya butted in, then started talking about her nightmare, since Adrien hadn't really heard what she was saying when she was talking about it the day after. Then Nino chimed in, talking about what his nightmare had been. None of them asked Adrien, because it wasn't really something most people wanted to admit, and they didn't want to force him. He offered it up anyways.</p><p>"My nightmare was a giant cage in my room that kept getting smaller, with no way to escape", he admitted softly, his hand straying to his bag again, Marinette noticed. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder, pushing past the vision of crazed eyes and an unnaturally tilted head. </p><p>~~~~~</p><p>Just over a year later, Marinette found herself celebrating the eight-month anniversary of dating Adrien. She was preparing for their date, and she couldn't help being a bit nervous. Adrien had told her earlier that there was something he needed to tell her. She knew that he loved her, and that he definitely wasn't the kind of person to break up with her on their anniversary, but she couldn't help being a bit nervous. Had he found out that she was Ladybug? Did he know that's what she was going to tell him later today? She really hoped it wasn't anything terrible. </p><p>Arriving a few minutes early at their meeting place for once, Marinette fidgeted nervously. She glanced at her phone. Normally, Adrien was the early one. It was getting to be about the time they had agreed on meeting, and he still wasn't there. Where could he be? </p><p>Suddenly, Marinette heard a rustling in the bushes. Her head snapped around. What was that?</p><p>A low voice sounded from the same spot the rustling had originated from. "Marineeeettttteeeee~ do you want to know my secret?", a blond head poked out of the bushes, a couple of leaves adorning his hair.</p><p>"Oh, Adrien, thank goodness it's just you. What are you doing in the bushes?", she asked him, weirded out by his strange behavior, and more than a little freaked out as well. </p><p>"Marineeettttteeee~ I'm in love with ChLoE... One day we'll have a house together and we'll have a hamster named Marineeeettteeee", he said, eyes wide and head cocked to the side, grinning creepily.</p><p>She whacked him upside the head with her purse. "Stop that! I <em>knew </em>you were listening to me and Alya talk about that!", she scolded him angrily.</p><p>He doubled over laughing, hardly able to catch his breath. Marinette crossed her arms and looked away, pouting angrily. Finally, Adrien straightened and pulled her closer, dropping a kiss on her head.</p><p>"I'm not going to lie, I did hear you guys. But that's how I knew that you liked me, and how I had enough confidence to ask you out", he chuckled.</p><p>Softening a bit, she turned to look at him. "Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?"</p><p>"No, actually. I was going to tell you that I'm Chat Noir", he shrugged nonchalantly. </p><p>"WHAT?!?!??!?"</p><p>~~~~~</p><p>Many years later, Marinette was sitting at their kitchen table, making sock puppets with their young daughter. She had already made a ladybug, and she was working on a black cat to go with it. Sorting through her buttons, she found two green ones that matched pretty well. Perfect. Placing them on the black sock puppet, she turned to her daughter, who was randomly gluing buttons and bits of string to her sock. </p><p>"What do you think, Ems? Does it look good?", she asked her daughter, holding up her creation. Her daughter heartily approved, turning back to glue a few more odds and ends to her project. </p><p>"What is it? I wanna see!", Adrien said, padding over from where he had been sitting on the couch, toiling over a project for his work. <em>Ever the curious cat, </em>she thought, amused.</p><p>When Adrien saw her cat puppet, however, his reaction was very much <em>not </em>what she had been expecting. His mouth fell open in shock and his eyes filled with tears. </p><p>"Plagg?!? No! How did you get turned into a sock again?!", he cried. <em>What? </em>Marinette turned to her daughter, confused, only to see that Emma looked just as baffled as she did. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>What do you guys think Alya's nightmare would be? Nino's? Sabine's? Tikki's? In rewatching the episode, I found out that Plagg mentions his would be dairy-free cheese, which is actually hilarious. I definitely did not catch that the first time through.<br/>(Does anyone say "yikes" anymore? Or is that just me?)<br/>I still can't get nightmare Adrien out of my head sometimes, and I didn't even live through it, so I definitely don't blame Marinette. Excuse me while I go purge my head of that image.<br/>Can we talk about Plagg taking the time to make a sock puppet of himself? Where did he get the materials??? I gotta say, though, the moment when Adrien sees Sock Plagg and starts freaking out is one of the best things I've ever seen. 10/10 quality content.<br/>Also, if you were wondering, yes, Adrien keeps touching his bag because he wants to make sure Plagg's still there.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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